


Growing Like The Quickening Hues

by hariboo



Category: Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
Genre: F/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-14
Updated: 2013-12-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 15:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1082609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hariboo/pseuds/hariboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His warmth feeds something in her. She wonders if it’s happiness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Like The Quickening Hues

**Author's Note:**

> ANOTHER ADVENT CALENDAR FIC. FOR ANOTHER ANON!! Unbeta'd, I'm sorry! I hope you like it, anon!

She doesn’t remember the castle being warm. Growing up in a cell, she supposes, helps that. Even her scant memories of warmth and safety feel dreamlike when she thinks of her childhood and her father’s smile and William’s laughter and the sun shining down on the garden. There has been too many years of cold. Snow wonders if her namesake has curses more than Ravanna ever could. Pushes warmth from her life even when it’s all she longs for.

That’s why it’s almost a shock that first moment he touches her and she feels her entire body react. There’s surprise and fear, but there’s a spark, like kindling being lit and snuffed out, as his fingers touch her skin and pull away. 

Somewhere she feels the thaw coming inside her.

And then when he touches her cheek and promises to stay she chokes on her tears but also because she doesn’t feel cold anymore. She thinks of safety and warmth and there’s the dwarves and then there a lot of running and she bites down on a cold apple and it’s only his warm that helps thaw the ice that’s spread in her veins. 

When she wakes she holds both inside her, the cold curse of her name and his warm. His protection. She takes her castle and lights fires in every room, in every corner, and feels only the warmest when he’s near her. 

“Thank you for staying,” she says one day as they walk the castle gardens. She likes being outside more than in and while everyone worries excessively for her safety, she knows there is nowhere safer than by him. He’s still a bit stiff in his armour, but he wears it well. So many argued when she named him the captain of her guard, but she is Queen now, her word near law, and he is one of the few people she truly trusts anymore. 

She is called the kingdom’s light and sword, but she remains sheathed now, protected and watched every second and it’s only under his eyes that she feels the tension of ruling stripped down. He sees beyond the crown and keeps her hands warm between his when she can’t help reach out.

His hand touches her elbow and they turn, the large trees covering them, and his touch drifts up her arm to brush her shoulder and chin. He’s so careful about how he touches her now. She misses the forest at times like this.

“I promised you I would, forgetting already?” His smile is small, teasing at the edges. Snow shakes her head and tilts her head up. He blocks out the sun and the trees play withe the shadows that fall over them. She’s reminded of the Clearing. She was the warmest there, she thinks. 

“No, but you could have refused me.”

He pulls them deeper into the shadow of the trees. She knows she’ll have her advisors breathing down her neck later about this, but she cannot bring herself to care. 

“You do not refuse a queen,” he says, his fingers linger at the edges of her hair. She thinks of fire licking at her toes. She wants to step forward, but the idea of the burning keeps her still, but each day she is less and less frightened of it.

She feels her flush rise on her cheek and smiles, “Is that the only reason? Fear of refusing me? My wrath?”

“Your wrath is great, it strikes fears into the fiercest of trolls,” he says, making her laugh, “but I gave you my word and I intended to keep it as long as I can.” He pauses and something heavy crosses his eyes. When he speaks next, his voice is much lower than before. “Last time I left your side you fell.” She shivers, remembers the sensation of snow at her back, seeping into her bones. Her namesake, her curse.

Snow still hasn’t told him he’s also the reason she rose again. She’s not sure what that confession would do them, how it would alter them. Biting her lips, she considers that statement and finds it false. Maybe she’s a little too sure of what her confession would do. 

Her advisors are keeping the words marriage quiet, but she knows they would prefer her married. She is of age. She has her own preferences however.

Reaching up to where his hand is hovering over her shoulder, flat against the strong bark of the tree they are lending against, she turns her body to touch the edges of it. His hands are so much larger and darkened by the sun than hers. She hasn’t spent a summer outside the castle since her imprisonment. She wonders if she’s burn under the heat of the summer sun. His shadow falls across her face and she knows. He wouldn’t let her burn as much as he wouldn’t let her freeze. 

She covers the tips of his fingers with hers. 

“I did not stay fallen.”

“Trouble follows you.” He moves the hand under hers and twines their fingers. 

“Yes, you do,” she teases and he laughs, low and a comfort. She can’t help but sway into the sound. His warmth feeds something in her. She wonders if it’s happiness. 

She hopes it is.


End file.
